IF– (1910) by Rudyard Kipling

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:07]If by Rudyard Kipling,  originally published in 1910.

[00:00:15]If you can keep your head when all about you  are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,  but make allowance for their doubting, too.

[00:00:29]If you can wait and not be tired by waiting or  being lied about, don't deal in lies. Or being hated, don't give way to hating and yet don't look  too good nor talk too wise. If you can dream and not make dreams your master. If you can think  and not make your thoughts your aim. If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two  impostures just the same. If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by naves to make a  trap for fools. or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with  worn out tools. If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and  toss and lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss. If you  can force your heart and nerve and sineu to serve your turn long after they are gone and so hold  on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them hold on. If you can talk with  crowds and keep your virtue or walk with kings nor lose the common touch. If neither foes nor loving  friends can hurt you. If all men count with you, but none too much. If you can fill the unforgiving  minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run, yours is the earth and everything that's in  it. And which is more, you'll be a man, my son.